Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 28, 2026
08:46
T4 Bacteriophage and E. coli Interaction in the Murine Intestine: A Prototypical Model for Studying Host-Bacteriophage Dynamics In Vivo
Published on: January 26, 2024
Temperature-dependent coliphage induces distinct temporal bacterial morphological dynamics during infection.
Jiranan Pattano1, Filosofia F T A Prasasti2, Songphon Buddhasiri3
1Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Microbiology Spectrum
|May 27, 2026
Summary
Researchers studied a coliphage named Tiny, revealing how it changes bacterial cells during infection. This work provides a new method to understand phage biology and host interactions over time.
Area of Science:
- Microbiology and Virology
- Bacteriophage Biology
- Cellular Morphology and Physiology
Background:
- Phage infection induces physiological transitions, offering insights into replication and antimicrobial potential.
- Current methods lack comprehensive single-cell analysis and temporal resolution for studying phage-induced morphological changes, especially for phages with short latent periods.
- Understanding phage-host interactions is crucial for developing novel antimicrobial strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To establish a broadly applicable framework for dissecting lytic phage biology with high temporal resolution using a model phage-host pair.
- To characterize the temporal morphological transitions of a newly identified coliphage, Tiny, throughout its infection cycle.
- To provide a phenotypic analysis pipeline for advancing the understanding of phage-host interactions.
Main Methods:
- Characterization of a newly identified coliphage, Tiny, with a 53 kbp genome and a prolonged latent period.
- Assessment of Tiny's temperature- and host-dependent killing profiles against diverse *Escherichia coli* strains.
- Single-cell bacterial cytological profiling of Tiny-infected *E. coli* ATCC 25922 cells to capture dynamic morphological transitions.
Main Results:
- Tiny exhibits temperature-dependent replication efficiency (enhanced at lower temperatures) and host-dependent adsorption and latent period durations.
- Tiny induces distinct, progressive bacterial morphological transitions throughout its lytic cycle, indicating sequential host physiology modulation.
- The phage-host compatibility influences the latent period, with slower adsorption correlating to a prolonged latent period.
Conclusions:
- The study establishes a high-temporal-resolution framework for dissecting lytic phage biology, applicable to various phage-host systems.
- Tiny's infection cycle involves sequential modulation of host physiology, leading to distinct morphological changes prior to cell lysis.
- This work lays the foundation for future omics studies to deeply understand phage-host interactions and phage-derived antimicrobials.
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